share:

OVERVIEW

Brief Synopsis

An oppressed and exploited young woman (Marie) begins charging for her sexual favors and completely disrupts the smug patriarchal capitalist society of the village of Tellier.

Marie lives as an outcast with her mother in a shack on the edge of the Provençal village of Tellier, working at menial tasks and sometimes accommodating the sexual desires of the village men and of her lesbian employer. Her life changes when her mother is killed in a hit-and-run accident. Taking the few hundred francs her mother possessed, Marie stages a combination wake and party to which she invites her admirers. Unable to afford a proper burial for her mother, she waits until the men are thoroughly intoxicated and then asks them to bury the corpse in the yard, promising her sexual favors in return. Marie in broad daylight begins to fulfill her promise the following day, and an angry mob arrives at her door. The game warden retaliates against her by killing her pet goat, the sole creature she loves, and thereafter Marie swears revenge against the smug populace. She seduces each of the townsmen in turn, now charging progressively higher fees for the services she once provided free. André, an itinerant movie projectionist, is a friend to her, providing her with goods from the world outside the little village, but his attempts to persuade her to leave are unsuccessful. With a tape recorder, she collects information with which to betray and ruin her clients, who run the gamut of the village society. Then one Sunday Marie attends mass, and before leaving the church she deposits the tape recorder, playing at full volume, in the collection box. Outraged, the villagers descend on her shack, only to find that Marie has abandoned the village for a better life elsewhere.